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How to solve internet connection problems

There can be problems with wireless internet (most common) and with wired internet (rather rarely). First I'll describe how to deal with the wireless category, and then I'll describe a solution for the wired category.

Wireless internet problems fall into two subcategories: either you have no connection at all, or you have a flaky weak connection. I've described below how to deal with both problems.

Broadcom: try another driver

1.2. When you have a Broadcom wireless card, you should get an automatic alert about the availability of a restricted non-free driver: the bcmwl-kernel-source. In most cases, that's the best driver.

Did you get no alert? Then check it by launching Driver Manager (Linux Mint) or Software & Updates, tab Additional Drivers (Ubuntu). You need internet connection for that, so first establish a temporary internet connection by ethernet cable or by another wireless dongle.

However, in a few cases this driver isn't adequate. Then try if it helps, when you disable Bluetooth. If disabling Bluetooth doesn't do the job either, then this is how you can install another driver:

a. First, establish a temporary internet connection by ethernet cable; in other words a wired connection.

Launch a terminal window.(You can launch a terminal window like this: *Click*)

b. If this helps, which you should notice immediately (just click on the Network Manager icon in the system tray!), you can make this hack permanent in the following way:

First make sure that you have installed the applications gksu and leafpad:

Launch a terminal window.

Type (or copy/paste): sudo apt-get install gksu leafpad

Press Enter and submit your password. Please note that the password will remain invisible, not even asterisks will show, which is normal.

b. Then type in the terminal (use copy/paste):gksudo leafpad /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

Press Enter.

Now add the following lines to the existing text in that text file, at the bottom (use copy/paste):# Turn on the wireless chipset
blacklist ideapad-laptop

Save and close the text file.

Now the hack should be executed automatically, each time you boot your computer.

Wireless internet is being blocked by Bluetooth

1.4. This applies only to computers which have a combined Bluetooth / wireless chipset.

On some laptops, wireless internet (wifi or 3G) is being blocked by Bluetooth. In that case, the solution is simple: temporarily disable Bluetooth, by clicking on the Bluetooth icon in the upper panel. Then reboot your laptop. Bluetooth should remain disabled and you should be able to make wifi or 3G connection.

If Bluetooth should be enabled again after reboot, disable it more thouroughly by disabling it in the BIOS of your laptop.

No avail? Proceed to the next item.

Install the wireless Backports modules

1.5. In some cases it helps, when you install the wireless Backports modules. You can do that as follows:

Download the .deb file and simply double-click it, just like a .exe file in Windows. It will install automatically.

Then reboot your computer.

No avail? Then proceed to the next item.

Set your router on a fixed wireless channel

1.7. Nowadays most new wireless routers use, by default, a feature called automatic channel switching. Instead of having a fixed wireless channel, which was usual in the past.

This ensures a minimum of interference with the wireless networks of your neighbours. But in a few cases this feature inhibits making a wireless connection in Linux. So set your router to the best fixed wireless channel for you and then try to connect again.

No avail? Then proceed to the next item.

Turn the kernel module acer_wmi off or on

1.8. A certain kernel module, called acer_wmi, causes problems on some laptops. Because it has been loaded when it shouldn't have been, or because it has not been loaded and it should have been.

First the most common situation: the module has been loaded, but shouldn't have been.

a. First make sure that you have installed the applications gksu and leafpad:

Launch a terminal window.(You can launch a terminal window like this: *Click*)

Type (or copy/paste): sudo apt-get install gksu leafpad

Press Enter and submit your password. Please note that the password will remain invisible, not even asterisks will show, which is normal.

b. Then type in the terminal (use copy/paste):gksudo leafpad /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

Press Enter.

Now add the following lines to the existing text in that text file, at the bottom (use copy/paste):# Turn on the wireless card by disabling acer_wmi
blacklist acer_wmi

Add the following lines to that text file, at the bottom of it (use copy/paste to avoid errors):# Turn on the wireless card by enabling acer_wmi
acer_wmi

Save and close the text file.

f. Reboot your computer.

g. No avail? Then first undo this operation (delete the added lines in /etc/modules) and.... reboot your computer (this is beginning to look like Windows!).

h. Proceed to the next item.

Use the Windows driver with Ndiswrapper

1.9. Sometimes you can get a wireless chipset to work as follows.

a. Plug in a temporary ethernet network cable and try the Windows driver in a Linux coating: install ndisgtk (Ndiswrapper) by means of Ubuntu Software Center.

b. Afterwards, start Ndiswrapper (the still empty Linux coating) ....and keep the CD with the Windows driver at hand. What you'll want Ndiswrapper to point at, is most likely the Windows XP driver. Probably a file with the extension .inf

c. Then give the wireless card some time to initialize: wait a couple of minutes.

Note: with Ndiswrapper, sometimes you can only connect to unprotected wireless networks or to weakly protected networks (WEP).

(continued in the column on the right)

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Bad wireless connection

2. Another category of wireless internet problems is bad connections. You do have a connection, at least from time to time, but the quality stinks: low speed, unstable or flaky.

Below I'll describe two ways in which you may be able to improve your wireless connection. In many cases this is effective.

Note: when the first method is already succesful, then of course you don't need to apply the second as well (duh....).

Disable power management for the wireless card

2.1. For some wireless chipsets a simple tweak is sufficient for increasing the connection quality a lot. Namely disabling the power management for the wireless chipset. The speed of your wireless internet may then increase also.

You can do that as follows:

a. First make sure that you have installed the applications gksu and leafpad:

Launch a terminal window.(You can launch a terminal window like this: *Click*)

Type (or copy/paste): sudo apt-get install gksu leafpad

Press Enter and submit your password. Please note that the password will remain invisible, not even asterisks will show, which is normal.

b. Now find out how Ubuntu or Mint calls your wireless chipset.

Type in the terminal:iwconfig

Press Enter.

You can then not only see the name for your wireless chipset (for example: wlan0), but also whether Power Management is on. When it's off, or when no mention is made of Power Management at all, you don't need to do anything.

Note: in the how-to below, I use the example of a wireless chipset called wlan0. Sometimes it's called something else, like eth1. In that case of course you need to adapt the terminal command lines accordingly.

c. Launch a terminal window.(You can launch a terminal window like this: *Click*)

Now copy/paste this line into the terminal:sudo chmod 755 /etc/pm/power.d/wireless

Press Enter.

This has made the empty text file executable.

d. Now you're going to put a certain text into that empty text file that you've just created.

Copy/paste the following line into the terminal:gksudo leafpad /etc/pm/power.d/wireless

Press Enter.

Now text editor Leafpad launches with the empty text file "wireless".

Copy/paste the following text into the empty text file "wireless":#!/bin/sh
/sbin/iwconfig wlan0 power off

e. Save and close the text file.

f. Now close all applications and reboot your computer.

g. Then check in the terminal, by the command iwconfig, whether Power Management for the wireless chipset is off now.

Driver ath9k or ath5k: disable hardware encryption/decryption

2.2. When you have an Atheros wireless chipset and it's running on the ath9k or ath5k driver, then you might have a very slow and/or unstable connection with certain types of those chipsets.

In that case, it may help to disable hardware encryption/decryption on the chipset. All you are doing then, is telling the driver to do the encryption/decryption in the software rather than using the chipset hardware for that.

This encryption/decryption occurs when using a secured wireless connection that utilizes WPA or WPA2. In almost all cases, therefore....

By shifting the encryption/decryption from the hardware to the software, network operations will consume a bit more CPU power, but otherwise, nothing should be affected. So the "price" you pay is small: only a little extra system load.

You can do this as follows:

Launch a terminal window.(You can launch a terminal window like this: *Click*)

Type (use copy/paste to avoid typo's):lsmod | grep ath

Press Enter.

If you see the module ath9k or ath5k mentioned in the output, you continue.

Realtek wireless chipset

2.3. In case you have a Realtek wireless chipset that doesn't work at all or often loses connection and runs below its ordinary speed, that chipset probably needs a better driver. You can install an improved driver like this.

Set your router to "G-only"

2.4. With a few wireless chipsets the connection speed increases enormously, when you set the "Wireless Network Mode" in the configuration of the router with which they connect, to G only.

The price that you pay is that you disable the faster N-mode, but when your internet service doesn't even reach the maximum of the G-mode (as is the case for 90 % of all households), then you lose nothing.

The configuration window of your router can usually be reached as a "web page" in Firefox. Linksys routers have their configuration normally at 192.168.1.1 (type it in the URL bar of Firefox and press Enter).

No wired or wireless internet on a dual boot computer

3. This may be due to a flaw in Windows, which can be repaired easily.

If you have a dual bootable PC with Windows, and you've just used Windows, you may not get an IP address after a reboot in Linux. And so no internet connection.

This has the following reason: every network card has a unique MAC address. This address is ingrained in your NIC. The DHCP server in your router remembers this MAC address.

When you access the internet in Windows and then reboot in Linux, in many cases you'll get no IP address from the DHCP server in your router. Because this server will recall that it previously issued an IP address for that very same MAC address, and won't issue a new one.

You can solve this by forcing Windows to release the IP address, before you reboot the PC. By the way: Linux by default does release the IP address on shutdown. So a reboot from Linux into Windows causes no problems.

Tip: Did you forget to force Windows to release the IP address, and you don't want to boot Windows to do it as yet? Then simply boot Ubuntu or Linux Mint twice in a row. After the second boot of Ubuntu or Mint you can probably connect.

A. Manual method
1. Open a DOS window in Windows

Windows XP:
Start - Programs - Accessories - Command Prompt

Windows 7:
Start - All Programs - Accessories - Command Prompt

2. Type:ipconfig /release

(note the space between ipconfig and /release)

And press Enter.

B. Semi-automatic method
By means of a shortcut on your desktop, you can apply a semi-automatic solution for this.

1. Open Notepad
Windows XP: Start - Programs - Accessories - Notepad

2. type the following text:ipconfig /release

3. Save this text file as release.bat and place it on your desktop. Now you can always simply double click this file, before you exit Windows.

As I said, Linux releases the IP address by default on shutdown. So a reboot from Linux into Windows causes no problems.

Want more tips?

Do you want more tips and tweaks for Ubuntu or Linux Mint? There's a lot more of them on this website!